Bill Viola's endeavor to translate dreams, experiences and the unconscious into aesthetic worlds of image and sound runs like a common thread through his work. The associative narrative strands, which are based on existential questions, unfold around the opposing pairs of birth and death, reality and virtuality. Viola's work draws on both Christianity and Zen Buddhism, which he himself practiced during a stay in Japan. Viola interweaves his deep spirituality with autobiographical elements, such as his own near-death experience by drowning, to create multi-layered works.
As in The Passing (1991), The Reflecting Pool (1977/78) is also about death and rebirth. Even in this early work, the element of water has a multi-layered symbolism: as a metaphor for the beginning and the end or as a mirror surface that exposes reality as illusionary.
